Elizabeth Strout

Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force. . . . [She] makes us experience not only the terrors of change but also the terrifying hope that change can bring: she plunges us into these churning waters and we come up gasping for air.

— The New Yorker

A true storyteller.

— The Philadelphia Inquirer

Writing of this quality comes from a commitment to listening, from a perfect attunement to the human condition, from an attention to reality so exact that it goes beyond a skill and becomes a virtue.

— Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall

Magnificent.

— Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto

When Elizabeth Strout is on her game, is there anybody better?

— USA Today

Strout pierces the inner worlds of [her] characters’ most private behaviors, illuminating the emotional conflicts and pure joy of being human, of finding oneself in the search for the American dream.

— Nylon

Spectacular.

— Lily King, The Washington Post

Selected Lecture Topics

Why Fiction Matters

“It is not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ that interests me as a writer, but the murkiness of human experience and the consistent imperfections of our lives.”

—Elizabeth Strout

With her finely drawn characters and incisive prose, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Elizabeth Strout uses the quiet rhythms of the everyday and the natural beauty of northern New England to illuminate the depth of grief and the breadth of joy in even the most ordinary lives.

Publishers Weekly writes, “Her unsentimental writing and sharp-eyed vision elevate the quotidian, finding truths that are at once heartbreaking and illuminating—and never, never dull.”

Strout’s first novel, Amy and Isabelle, won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for First Fiction and was made into a television movie. Set in the New England mill town of Shirley Falls, it tells the story of Amy Goodrow, a high school student whose relationship with her mother Isabelle has become strained since Amy was found in a compromising situation with her math teacher. But the story’s true drama, writes Suzanne Berne in TheNew York Times, “lies in the palpable, intricate way it examines the ‘scrape of longing’ that drives these characters toward human contact, leaving them raw and bleeding yet also more fully alive.”

Abide with Me, Strout’s second novel, revisits the landscape of northern New England with the tale of Tyler Caskey, a recently widowed minister who is struggling to regain his calling, his family, and his happiness in the wake of profound loss.

“Deeply moving . . . In one beautiful page after another, Strout captures the mysterious combinations of hope and sorrow. She sees all these wounded people with heartbreaking clarity, but she has managed to write a story that cradles them in understanding and that, somehow, seems like a foretaste of salvation.”

—The Washington Post

Strout won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her 2008 novel Olive Kitteridge, which weaves together thirteen rich, luminous narratives into one masterful story anchored by unforgettable characters. The New Yorker says that Strout “animates the ordinary with astonishing force. . . . [She] makes us experience not only the terrors of change but also the terrifying hope that change can bring: she plunges us into these churning waters and we come up gasping for air.” Olive Kitteridge was adapted into an HBO miniseries in 2014 starring Frances McDormand. It won eight Emmy Awards.

Strout’s next book, The Burgess Boys: A Novel, was published in 2013. Set in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, The Burgess Boys centers on two brothers from Strout’s native Maine. “Strout’s prose propels the story forward with moments of startlingly poetic clarity,” wrote Elizabeth Minkel in The New Yorker.

Strout’s #1 New York Times bestselling novel My Name is Lucy Barton was longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize. It was also listed as one of the Best Books of 2016 by NPR and The New York Times.

In My Name is Lucy Barton, Strout shows how a simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the most tender and problematic relationship of all—the one between mother and daughter. Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken in years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, and her love for her two daughters. Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable.

Strout’s next novel, Anything is Possible, is set in the same world as Lucy Barton. NPR praised Anything is Possible, writing “[Strout] paints cumulative portraits of the heartache and soul of small-town America by giving each of her characters a turn under her sympathetic spotlight.”

Born in Portland, Maine, Strout graduated from Bates College with a degree in English in 1977. She received a law degree along with a Certificate in Gerontology from Syracuse University College of Law. Strout has taught creative writing at Manhattan College, The New School, Bard College, Colgate University, and Queens University of Charlotte. She divides her time between Maine and New York City.

Books

Praise for Anything Is Possible

It’s hard to believe that a year after the astonishing My Name Is Lucy Barton Elizabeth Strout could bring us another book that is by every measure its equal, but what Strout proves to us again and again is that where she’s concerned, anything is possible. This book, this writer, are magnificent.

Ann Patchett

Praise for My Name Is Lucy Barton

There is not a scintilla of sentimentality in this exquisite novel. Instead, in its careful words and vibrating silences, My Name Is Lucy Barton offers us a rare wealth of emotion, from darkest suffering to—‘I was so happy. Oh, I was happy’—simple joy.

The New York Times Book Review

Praise for The Burgess Boys

Elizabeth Strout’s first two books, Abide with Me and Amy and Isabelle, were highly thought of, and her third, Olive Kitteridge, won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. But The Burgess Boys, her most recent novel, is her best yet.

Deeply moving . . . In one beautiful page after another, Strout captures the mysterious combinations of hope and sorrow. She sees all these wounded people with heartbreaking clarity, but she has managed to write a story that cradles them in understanding and that, somehow, seems like a foretaste of salvation.

The Washington Post

Awards

2016 Premio Malaparte Prize, My Name Is Lucy Barton

2016 Medici Book Club Prize, My Name Is Lucy Barton

2016 Longlist, Man Booker Prize, My Name Is Lucy Barton

2015 O. Henry Prize, “Snow Blind”

2010 Honorary Doctorate, Bates College

2010 Premio Bancarella Prize, Olive Kitteridge

2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Olive Kitteridge

2008 Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award, Olive Kitteridge

2000 Shortlist, Orange Prize Nominee for Fiction, Amy & Isabelle

2000 Finalist, PEN/Faulkner Award, Amy & Isabelle

1999 Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, Amy & Isabelle

1998 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, Amy & Isabelle

Selected Writing

Anything Is Possible (Random House, 2017)

My Name Is Lucy Barton (Random House, 2016)

The Burgess Boys (Random House, 2013)

Olive Kitteridge (Random House, 2008)

Abide With Me (Random House, 2006

Amy & Isabelle (Random House, 1999)

Books

Praise for Anything Is Possible

It’s hard to believe that a year after the astonishing My Name Is Lucy Barton Elizabeth Strout could bring us another book that is by every measure its equal, but what Strout proves to us again and again is that where she’s concerned, anything is possible. This book, this writer, are magnificent.

Ann Patchett

Praise for My Name Is Lucy Barton

There is not a scintilla of sentimentality in this exquisite novel. Instead, in its careful words and vibrating silences, My Name Is Lucy Barton offers us a rare wealth of emotion, from darkest suffering to—‘I was so happy. Oh, I was happy’—simple joy.

The New York Times Book Review

Praise for The Burgess Boys

Elizabeth Strout’s first two books, Abide with Me and Amy and Isabelle, were highly thought of, and her third, Olive Kitteridge, won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. But The Burgess Boys, her most recent novel, is her best yet.

Deeply moving . . . In one beautiful page after another, Strout captures the mysterious combinations of hope and sorrow. She sees all these wounded people with heartbreaking clarity, but she has managed to write a story that cradles them in understanding and that, somehow, seems like a foretaste of salvation.